Causes of the Civil War: Long Term Causes (from Colonial Times)  1. Social and Cultural Divide between North and South –North: more urbanized, more diverse, more developed, more advanced infrastructure / transportation / communication systems, more cosmopolitan, more dynamic, more religious, greater emphasis on education, families ….. –South more rural, less diverse, less urbanized, less developed, plantations dictated social development ….

Causes of the Civil War: Long Term Causes  2. Economic Differences –North more industrialized: more merchants, traders, shippers, manufacturing: more diverse economy: based on wage labor: supported Tariffs, BUS –South based on Plantation economy of tobacco at first and now Cotton: based on slave labor: suspicious of Tariffs and BUS

Causes of the Civil War: Long Term Causes  3. Political Divide between North and South –Historically, North placed more emphasis on Federalism, power of Federal Government and the Elastic Clause: Hamilton, Adams, Webster … , BUS, Tariffs –South placed more emphasis on States Rights and Amendment 10: Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Calhoun, 10 th Amendment –North was more Democratic, South more Aristocratic..

Causes of the Civil War: Long Term Causes  4. Slavery “ Slavery was not the only source of discord. The two sections were very different and they wanted different things from their national government … Although there were serious differences between the sections, all of them except slavery could have been settled through the democratic process. Slavery poisoned the whole situation. It was the issue that could not be compromised, the issue that made men so angry they did not want to compromise

… It was not the only cause of the Civil War, but it was unquestionably the one cause without which the war would not have taken place. The antagonism between the sections came finally, and tragically, to express itself through the slavery issue. ” (Bruce Catton, The Civil War)

Causes of the Civil War: Immediate Causes  Events of the 1850s, esp. after 1854, intensified these differences (Social / Cultural, Economic, Political, differences over Slavery) and further polarized North and South, propelling the Nation to Civil War in 1861

 1. Opposition in North to Fugitive Slave Law of the Compromise of 1850 … failure of that Compromise, and Compromise of 1820, to permanently solve the issue of slavery  2. Expansion of Abolitionist Movement / Literature in the North after 1850 … inc. Harriet Beecher Stowe ’ s Uncle Tom ’ s Cabin, 1852  3. Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854, destroyed 2 Compromises ….(see notes on all 3 Compromises)  4. Formation of anti-extension Republican Party in 1854: collapse of Whigs, split in Democrats

 5. Settlement in Kansas, but Rivalry: two territorial legislatures in Kansas, 1855 … Shawnee v Topeka, with rival supporters  6. Rivalry turns to violence / bloodshed: Lawrence killings, Bleeding Kansas and John Browne, 1855 … Pottawatomie Massacre  7. Sumner vs Brooks (Butler), violence spills over to the Congress: Senate, 1855  8. The Dred Scott vs Sanford Decision, 1857 by the Supreme Courts adds to the conflict between North and South  9. Kansas and “ Lecompton Constitution ”, (Buchanan) 1857 ……. Further splits the Democratic Party

 10. The Economic Crisis / “ Panic ” of 1857  11. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates / “ Freeport Doctrine ”, 1858  12. John Browne and Harpur ’ s Ferry, 1859  13. Lincoln ’ s victory in the Presidential Election of Nov ……….. South remembers his “ House Divided Speech: … South Carolina starts Secession  14. Events at Fort Sumpter, March 1861 ….Southern Confederacy ….Civil War